Most things stay closed on Mondays in Paris, and that includes photographic exhibitions, so we were just going for a walk, as our train wasn’t until after 6pm. We booked out of the hotel, leaving our luggage to collect later (the hotel was close to the Gare du Nord) and set out.
I’d wondered if I could find some of the places that I’d photographed 22 years earlier and where in my Photo Paris book, as I knew I’d photographed some of them when wandering to the east and north of the park at Buttes Chaumont.
We spent the morning going down some likely streets, but didn’t recognise anything, apart from one very changed frontage which was still in the same hands.
Ness Music 1988, from ‘Photo Paris’
Ness Music 2010 – a few details and the name above the shop the same
We went and took a walk around Buttes Chaumont, an incredible park for an inner-city, and unsurprisingly a favourite of some of the Surrealists, as well as suicides.
As it got later, we were also looking for somewhere to eat, a good French cafe with a decent, reasonably priced menu, and we found a splendid example, Les Rigoles, on a corner of the Place des Grandes Rigoles. I started with a salad with lardons which was delicious, chunkier rather than elegant and followed that with the most delicious chicken I’ve had for some time. Definitely a place to go again next time I’m around there.
After a long lunch break we wandered down to the Parc de Belleville, and then slowly down to the Place de Menilmontant, before walking down towards the centre of Pais and then up along by the canal and down the rue des Recollets and making our way across the 10eme to pick up our luggage and go to the station. On the way we stopped to buy some food for the journey, although in the end we weren’t hungry until after we got home and only ate it then.
Most of the posts from Paris, along with some more about about the few times we weren’t looking at photographs and more pictures from our stay are on My London Diary – see below.
UPDATE:
PARIS PHOTO SUPPLEMENT is now on MY LONDON DIARY
- Wednesday
- Thur am: 9e, 2e & Paris Photo
- In the 3eme
- Brian Griffin – The Black Country
- Jim & Millie’s Party
- Wandering in the 20e
- Lab East at Paris Photo
- To Saint-Germain-des-Prés
- Montmartre at Night
- Street Photography in the 10e
- Guided tour of the Photo-OFF
- Dinner at Chartier
- The Marais
- BnF and FIAP
- Monday Wandering